Amnesty International | G20 leaders attending this weekend’s virtual summit hosted by Saudi Arabia must take the Saudi authorities to task for their shameless hypocrisy on women’s rights, Amnesty International said today. Women’s empowerment features prominently on Saudi Arabia’s G20 Agenda, despite the fact the activists who spearheaded campaigns for women’s rights are languishing in jail or facing trial.
In the specific case of Spain, and with macroeconomic forecasts that are more pessimistic than the Spain’s government’s, Brussels called for a periodic review of the effectiveness of the measures implemented, without jeopardizing the medium-term sustainability of public accounts. Furthermore, the EC forecasts that debt will soar to 120.3% of GDP this year and to 122% in 2021. This compares with the Spanish government’s estimate in its budgets of 118.8% and 117.4% respectively.
Four months ago, Spanish ROVI reached an agreement with Moderna for the filling and packaging of its vaccine. Since then ROVI’s capitalisation has increased by more than €750 M (up 53%). So far this month alone, the stock price has risen by 27%. With a central scenario of about 550 M of Moderna’s vaccines per year outside the US and Japan, the unit income for ROVI would be 0.75 €/vaccine (3.5% higher than the total price of the vaccine) which means a T.P. rise of +6, 5 €/shr. (+22% vs. before) up to 36 €/acc.
Javier García Arenas (Caixabank Research) | The NGEU European Recovery Fund has a significant budget and could have a major macroeconomic impact on the Spanish economy. The overview of the Recovery Plan presented by Spain reflects the country’s willingness to accelerate investment and outlines a number of relevant areas of action. The specific projects involved and the governance mechanisms for their selection and monitoring are not yet known.
“For single people with low wages, there is little financial incentive to work full time. If they had an additional income of EUR 10 per hour gross, they would see only EUR 2.50 to 3.90 of this in their net income. This is a finding of a study by ifo researchers Andreas Peichl and Maximilian Blömer for the Bertelsmann Stiftung. “The fatal combination of taxes, social security contributions, and the high withdrawal rate of benefits are to blame,” Peichl says. “This error in the system must be corrected. The workforce is shrinking, and soon we’ll need all hands on deck.”
The Government has approved the extension of the regulations on foreign investment with the aim of making it more difficult for foreign investors to take control of strategic Spanish companies that have fallen significantly on the stock market as a result of the Covid-19. The new issue of the measure, which was already in force, is to extend to EU investors plus the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Norway, the restrictions approved in March for non-EU investors.
Sean MarKowicz (Schroders) | The economic fallout of Covid-19 has wreaked havoc for income-seeking investors. Across the globe, interest rates have tumbled to record lows and equity dividends have been drastically cut.For example, this year dividends per share are expected to fall by 16% to 36% across the globe compared with 2019, with the UK and emerging markets (EM) among the worst affected regions. This has left investors nursing losses from normally dependable sources of income.
Intermoney | The data supports the fact that China is the star pupil in the world economy and fits in with the possibility it will have growth of 2% in 2020 and close to 8% in 2021.These figures are synonymous with an upward economic influence which the Chinese will use to achieve greater global scale. Xi Jinping is committed to this strategy by offering the world, or rather countries that opt for a “constructive” relationship with China, the Asian giant’s ability to import $22 Tr in goods over the next 10 years.
Dumitru Minzarari (Via Fair Observer) | s the world discusses the sudden cessation of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and the deployment of Russian “peacekeepers” to the region to monitor the truce, one critically important question is overlooked: Why did Russia not discourage Azerbaijan’s military offensive? A powerful security rationale implies a strong Russian interest in deterring a war that might change the regional status quo. Preserving a favorable status quo, by strategic logic, is the central security interest of a regional hegemon like Russia.
Adam Vettese (eToro) | Cryptoasset backers and analysts are increasingly divided over the outlook for Bitcoin amid the ongoing surge in its price. Bitcoin jumped above $16,000 this week amid news of another vaccine against coronavirus, this time from Moderna.